(this piece was originally written for a more general audience, but i thought i’d share it with you lest it die a senseless death.)
december is a mighty decadent month. it gives us a reason to dress better, shop harder – and eat a lot of food. restaurants are slammed, parties abound and your office-kitchen is most likely out of control. we ve got this holiday thing down and we like it. and no one’s reinventing the wheel here. it’s the ‘holiday ball trinity’ cheese, bourbon and sausage. it s the white chocolate covered oreos beside the m&m snicker doodle cookies, next to the peanut butter marshmallow treats – adjacent to the countless other distinctive creations we’ve come to expect. we re strung out on carbs and then sobered by fat grams and perhaps not handling this whole food thing as well as we could. we are quite literally, intoxicated with december.
i present to you – an option. just one for now. and perhaps it could replace that chocolate coca-cola cake? no, no – i’m not the pushy new york city transplant coaxing you away from your all time faves. not that I could. not that I even want to. go ahead and make aunt shirley s velveeta fudge. because i totally love me some fudge. i’m just thinking there are a lot of other things out there you might consider, and well really, i was thinking about myself – and one thing in particular. because it’s been on my mind since I heard mario batali talking about my kind of cheesecake. and maybe it s not really a bonafide holiday cake , but it certainly could be, as it has candied fruit, nuts and TWO kinds of alcohol – which technically makes it a fruit cake. and nothing screams holiday like a fruit cake. but this this is an authentic sicilian cheesecake and although it s not for the faint of palate, when executed well, it s something tony soprano and i truly long for.
ingredients are my game. keep them few and fabulous. so I m thinking that a cake like this will only shine with fresh ricotta. polly-o’s plastic sealed version might do in a pinch but i figured fresh is where it s at. so i hit the phone pretty hard, calling three of very best italian bakeries in the tri-state area. i wanted their take on the cake. ‘veniero s’ in the east village owned up to using polly-o, while ‘carlo s’ in hoboken, nj uses fresh cow s milk ricotta and ‘buon italia’ in chelsea imports their own sheep s milk ricotta from italy. so there you have it. it s a one bowl number that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. or just don your inner orange crocs and do what our mario does:
sicilian cheesecake
(inspired by Mario Batali s Budino di Ricotta )
*please note that ricotta cheese inherently has a more rough and crumble texture than the ubiquitous cream cheese cake. if you prefer a less grainy, more creamy texture, use a food processor or a blender to smooth out the batter.
4 cups (about 2 lbs) fresh sheep’s or cow milk ricotta (or prepackaged in a pinch – works fine)
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sambucca
3 T amaro (recommended: Fernet Branca)
7 eggs yolks
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 t fine sea salt
1 orange, zested
1/3 cup finely diced candied orange or citron peel or a combo cup toasted pine nuts
toast pine nuts in a pan over low heat, watching carefully and shaking often until they brown.
preheat the oven to 275 degrees then butter a 9-inch springform cake pan.
in a large mixing bowl, mix the sugar, flour and salt add the ricotta with the sambucca, amaro and zest add the egg yolks mix well using a food processor or blender (for creamy consistancy) pour the ricotta mixture into the prepared pan and gently mix in the orange peel evenly then top with the pine nuts, gently pushing most of them below the surface bake until just set, about 60 minutes serve room temperature or chilled
in the name of december, we ve covered some of the major food players – cheese, fruit, nuts and alcohol. you ll just have to get your chocolate somewhere else. but hey, last week I picked up a ‘Mo s Bacon Bar by Vosges Haut Chocolate’. bits of applewood smoked bacon suspended in a dark milk chocolate if I were you, I wouldn t live another day without trying it. no offense to those red and green kisses
14 responses so far ↓
1 CeeElCee // Dec 19, 2007 at 9:45 am
My personal holiday eating rule:
“Food eaten while standing up has no calories.”
Have a nice day.
2 Dan // Dec 19, 2007 at 10:07 am
I am always insanely jealous of gorgeous baked goods. i simply cannot find the patience. even when i did grandma’s datenut bread, it was a whirling dervish of dry goods and wet goods and chopping and stiring and buttering. there was nothing refined or elegant about it.
3 claudia // Dec 19, 2007 at 10:17 am
cee – wrong. sadly – so vereh vereh wrong…
dan – then this cake is for you. E. Z.
4 TaratheFoodie // Dec 19, 2007 at 11:33 am
This looks like the kind of dessert I would really like. Creamy but with more to it than just “sweet”. I’m not a huge sweets fan, I like a touch of sweet, but not too much. If it goes well with coffee, I’m in. I’m thinking this would. Plus, in my book, Mario can do no wrong, so I’m sure this is very good. The picture sure makes me think so! yum!
5 cookiecrumb // Dec 19, 2007 at 4:03 pm
I’m with Tara. Not so sweet, but terribly seductive. I might do it! Thanks for the recipe.
Beautiful pictures, C.
Happy Holidays!!
6 claudia // Dec 19, 2007 at 6:41 pm
tara – very grown-up dessert. i really love it.
cookie – i recommend it. i did it 3x tweaking it each time – all within one week. i was giving away lotsa cheesecake….
7 lucy // Dec 20, 2007 at 9:34 am
mmmmmmm
*swoon*
8 annie // Dec 20, 2007 at 8:27 pm
claudia, its more beautiful than I had imagined. It looks like it has just a bit of delicate crust. Also, I really hate “normal” cheescake, and this just sounds so sophisticated and lovely.
Of course, I will miss the Graham cracker crust and the canned cherry pie filling.
9 Meg // Dec 20, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Hee. Velveeta fudge. I think you hit the nasty holiday food nail on the head. I liked the bacon bar in small bits, but I admit, I am nearly addicted to the pricey Barcelona bar (smoked almonds, grey salt, milk chocolate) as the best upgrade ever to Hershey bars with almonds. That cake looks beautiful. Have you tried making ricotta? It seems like it would be up your alley.
10 claudia // Dec 21, 2007 at 11:16 am
lucy – i love an ‘easy’ eater
annie – verrry funny…
meg – vosges does not suck. but pricey is an understatement. yet, we buy…
making ricotta? i dunno. sounds tedious. plus i don’t own a sheep. or a cow. yet.
11 Lauren // Dec 21, 2007 at 8:26 pm
For the record, Vosges so does suck. I got a box of them once and they were beyond me on the combinations. It’s all about the Scharffen Berger for me. Not too fancy, but roll over and beg good chocolate.
12 lydia saucepan // Jan 6, 2008 at 1:37 pm
superb!… that just makes me salivate with glee. for some reason, after 20-odd years of dismissing cheesecake as boring and bland I have suddenly become obsessed with them, although still have yet to make one. this might just be the inspiration i need….
happy new year btw!
13 We Are Never Full // Aug 18, 2008 at 10:11 pm
See, Claudia… this is why I need to take a week to read through all your older posts that I missed before I knew about cook eat FRET. This is so interesting that Mario would add Fernet Branca. I could see it going really well, actually. hey, it’s only 3 tablespoons, but still. Now I know what we can do w/ the rest we may not drink. Ok, jonny will, but me… hell no.
14 isabella strickler // May 4, 2009 at 7:10 pm
what other foods do scilians eat?
15 googly // Oct 5, 2015 at 4:44 am
Nice post. I was checking constantly this blog and I
am inspired! Very helpful info specially the
final section 🙂 I deal with such info a lot.
I used to be seeking this certain info for a very long time.
Thank you and good luck.
16 flavored coffee online // Nov 15, 2015 at 6:07 pm
Hey juѕt wantеd to ɡive yоu
ɑ quicfk heads uр. Τhе words іn yоur article ѕeem tο
ƅе running ooff thе screen іn Firefox.
I’m not ѕure іf tһіѕ iѕ ɑ format issue օr ѕomething tⲟ ⅾο ᴡith browser
compatibility but I thought І’ⅾ post tο lеt
ʏou κnoա. Ꭲһе style аnd design lоοk great though!
Hope үοu gеt tҺе issue resolved ѕoon. Cheers
Ꮋere iss my Һomepage – flavored coffee online
17 Sarah Hughes // Jun 4, 2017 at 7:43 am
I discovered your claudia young – a sicilian ricotta cheesecake page and noticed you could have a lot more traffic. I have found that the key to running a website is making sure the visitors you are getting are interested in your subject matter. We can send you targeted traffic and we let you try it for free. Get over 1,000 targeted visitors per day to your website. Start your free trial: http://magc.co/7fe Unsubscribe here: http://acortarurl.es/97
18 uniquebabyshowerinvitation // Sep 28, 2017 at 10:40 am
> Most people did not have degrees at that time, To write for the paper you couldn’t just be some shmoe off the It was a paid position, and yes, they did expect you to be very literate, and that normally meant going to > My question and observations are about the content of the paper, not the Newspapers have reporters, who gather stories, journalists who write the stories from the news reports, editors who are in charge of the crew and the content, and editorialists who write their opinions of the news Which of these most resemble the bloggers that you are discussing?
Leave a Comment